NRaO Chapter 47 (Patreon)

Ami’s Point of View

We made our way on our first mission since we finished the war… It seemed… Anticlimactic. From what I was told from other shinobi, we should have had a long drawn-out war where we’d be constantly fighting to save civilians from shinobi invading our land. What happened is we sat in the camp until they told us the war was over.

We now had our first mission without our sensei just a day after we returned from the battlefield. I wanted to gain accolades so sensei would look in my direction but that plan had fallen through. Now the only thing I could do was lead our squad… Two other people also wanted to lead and were more qualified than me. Nawaki and Fugaku fought over the leadership and we all watched.

As Nawaki finally defeated him I stepped in. “I challenge you now. Get re-.” He punched in my direction interrupting me. I deflected it but he managed to leave a seal on my arm. It was one of the seals I made for him damn it! That’s cheating. Thankfully I had a backdoor to deactivate the ones I made thanks to sensei. Mito is a great seal master but sensei had many things I could do that were deemed ‘underhanded trickery’ by Aunty Mito.

Leaving backdoors was one of those things so as he expected my chakra to be sealed he was surprised as it didn’t work on me at all. A giant sword came swinging towards my head, I ducked as I laughed at how impractical it was. It was too large for him to wield effectively dropping his fighting potential. It was so slow I could attach a seal to it and it blended hiding itself before he noticed.

I activated the special ninjutsu sensei taught me as a  hundred shadow clones appeared out of nowhere. He swung at the one aiming for his back and his giant sword goes right through it. That was a fake clone. Out of the hundred, only about ten were real clones, the rest were fakes only to draw attention and give the real clones chances to land hits.

I couldn’t outlast him so I needed a decisive victory. The big problem with fighting like this is most of what sensei taught us was lethal. It made missions much easier but for fights like this it neutered our power. We fought clumsily as the primary instinct is to go for a killing move and it took brainpower to alter that decision and not use it. If we did use any ninjutsu that could cripple or kill then you lose the fight automatically.

At least that’s how we judged who won. It often led us to try and make the other use a deadly ninjutsu so there was another layer of fighting between Orochi’s students. I tossed several blunted kunai at him as he turned his sword sideways to block. The seal I placed in the range of working I activated it. I smirked as the seal began to emit a stinky spray right in his face.

I laughed as he reeled back and dropped his sword to get pelted with a few of the kunai still being tossed in his direction. It wasn’t enough to be declared the winner unfortunately so I had to break out my own special move I came up with. All of the clones unraveled weapon storage seals and began to fling shurikens into the air. Even the fake clones did as well. Hundreds became thousands as all my clones performed the hand seals for multi-shuriken jutsu duplicating them a half dozen times.

I couldn’t help but yell out my technique. “Shuriken rain!” He was still distracted by the smell as it was an extremely pungent odor that stuck to whatever it was sprayed on. He begins to perform the hand signs for an earth wall but the smell is so bad he gags between signs and then gets pelted with a dozen shurikens. Hiami didn’t wait a few seconds before she called out. “I challenge.”

I turn to face her before I feel a stinging pain come from my foot. Damn, bitch had a snake waiting for my fight to end. As I fell over from the paralytic poison Gin yelled out. “I challenge y-!” A puppet that was blending in with the nearest tree makes its move and imprisons Gin with its empty center. She knew beforehand she would be challenged and planned to defeat me instantly while preparing for the next fight.

I couldn’t help but chuckle coldly at her tactics. She behaves the most like our sensei which makes her the most effective at these underhanded tactics. No, her cold and brutal tactics would make her the best leader for search-and-kill missions… Which is the exact type we were being sent on. Even though we won our war, countless shinobi fled to our land or were scattered during battles.

More than a dozen of these missions were issued and it would take another few months until we killed the invaders, they were incorporated into a village or fled back to their own lands. We took one of the lower-ranking missions that had three shinobi groups with bandits in a few villages from Konoha. As we made it to the village I think Hiami regretted becoming the leader as she had to talk to the village head.

“Which way are the shinobi?” He had a gruff look to him and his eyebrows furrowed at her bluntness. “Missy, where’s your sensei? This is a dangerous mission. Are you sure you five will be enough?” I could only laugh. “Our sensei is the reason the war is over already so he’s taking a well-needed break. Let’s head inside to discuss the information on what you know about the bandits.”

After getting all the information we headed off towards the last known location of the bandits. Living near a river in the hilly area. They had a small cave built into the mountain. It was about six bandits and three shinobi. They had taken several of the villagers captive and wanted to ransom them. It was only for food, but the villagers still couldn’t afford to pay the ransom and live through the winter.

The shinobi stood no chance. All three were killed at almost the same time in ambush attacks. The one outside had a snake bite them, the one by the river was stuck within a water prison until he drowned and the one inside the cave was dragged into the earth so that even his head wasn’t sticking out. Gin and I were on bandit cleanup to save the hostages.

Gin was wielding the largest sword out of the bunch. He only cleaved through three before I finished off the four meaning I won. As morose as betting on who could kill more was, it was just another day for shinobi. I held my hand out as he scoffed before handing over the token. Sensei gave us these tokens to use at any of his shops for food or items. I could buy a big fancy meal at his new restaurant.

We began to free the prisoners and Gin dropped his guard. One of them was another shinobi who lunged at him the moment she was freed. He was stabbed directly in the eye which should have killed him. He had a few things working for him to make it so he only lost his eye. For one was his Uzumaki body. It allowed him to stay active for longer and put in more physical training than anyone else on the team except Nawaki.

It gave his body the edge it needed to move away as he was being stabbed so the kunai didn’t pierce his brain. The other deciding factor was his own clumsiness. He moved backwards instinctively as the kunai dug in but he fell at the same time making the original strike that would have pierced cleanly catch against his skull. She was torn apart shortly after her singular suicide attack by several overpowered ninjutsu. Everyone going for overkill for what she did. We made our way back quietly as even I didn’t want to say anything.